Spectrophotometric determination of some MAO inhibitors using 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane and iodine monochloride.

Two simple and sensitive spectrophotometric methods are described for the assay of three MAO inhibitors: isocarboxazid, tranylcypromine sulphate and iproniazid phosphate. The first method is based on the formation of a highly coloured stable radical anion between the drug as an n-donor and 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) as a pi-electron acceptor. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range 0.2-3, 0.2-4 and 0.5-4 micrograms ml-1 for isocarboxazid, tranylcypromine sulphate and iproniazid phosphate, respectively. The second method involves the use of iodine monochloride (ICl) as an sigma-acceptor. It was found that ICl reacts quantitatively only with isocarboxazid and tranylcypromine sulphate; with iproniazid phosphate results were very poor. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range 2-20 micrograms ml-1 for both drugs. The optimum experimental parameters for colour production in each case were determined. The percentage recoveries obtained were in accordance with those obtained by the official methods. The proposed methods are characterized by high sensitivity.